I’m taking the ever popular Politics of the Middle East and North Africa course at university. I am anxious to put this one out, oh well, here it goes.
For some context: I grew up in Turkey and moved to the UK when in my early teens. I am currently enrolled in a Scottish university, and on exchange in Hong Kong for the academic year. And no, I have no qualms whatsoever about my identity, perhaps surprisingly. I am comfortable with who I am to the extent that it matters; I am aware of its complexities and contradictions yet feel no anxiety or discomfort because of them. My loyalties go to where my values come from, I’ll leave it at that.
As a visible Muslim assumably from the region, eyes turn to you in the tutorials. You’re supposed to elucidate, bring insights, make explanations… And every remark feels hurtful, like you are listening to gossip about someone you love. I ask myself, am I too sensitive? I struggle to take a few steps back and look at the subject from the comfortable position of my white or East Asian peers that fill up the classroom. My current exchange at Hong Kong adds some interesting dynamics into the picture, as one hegemon seems to falter, an aspiring successor is rising to fill the void in the region. I’m watching the scene unravel from a perspective hitherto unusual to me.
The best instructors suggest escaping essentialism and cultural explanations of the issues concerning the region, sticking to historical evolution instead of the timeless generalisations orientalism is known for. Yet, even the best cannot escape that accusation. Orientalism, as Said and later postcolonial theorists postulate, seeps through academia. I can’t stop questioning the intentions of my white instructors for picking their subject. ‘Passion’ and ‘interest’ are words thrown around for this, but I would reluctantly observe that it’s some kind of fascination with the ‘other’, and the funding poured into the area at higher education institutions of the West. There are some from the political left that approach with sympathy, but one cannot stop detecting the same old condescension. After all, what is Marxism if not another product of the modern West, with an agenda of same goals as the hegemonic liberal West (i.e. modernisation and secularisation) through somewhat different means, that historically played out to be just as violent if not even more. Though Lenin made the genius observation that imperialism is the latest stage of capitalism, the Soviet model of communism turned out to be just the same thing for the peoples of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
I find it difficult to understand how modern academics maintain such distance between themselves and their object of study. This is part of the scientific method, with a long lineage formally dating back to Bacon and the Enlightenment when it was codified. For social sciences which are necessarily about humans, this has serious ramifications. To be successful, you need to shut off your empathy, which could turn your ‘milk of human kindness’ sour. If you refuse, you do not succeed, neither in your research project sullied by subjectivity, nor in your career as an academic thereof. Traditionally, learning was seen as a relationship between the teacher and a pupil, the knower and the known… As these relationships are cut off, knowledge has become a means of alienation rather than closer connection to the objects of study.
I do not want to simply criticise modernity and western institutions without envisioning alternatives. After all, what do we replace them with if they are so really bad? And right there, I feel very stuck. The last 300 years of intellectual history unlock the door to understanding the world we find ourselves in. But to make judgements on this world is extremely difficult. The western civilisation bears many fruits, it would be hypocritical for me to deny that as someone who moved to the West in search of ‘a better life’ of security, personal freedom and economic opportunities. The beneficiaries of western modernity have access to security under functioning states relatively free from corruption while enjoying some democratic accountability, liberalism that brings personal freedom and responsibility for one’s own actions, secularism that is supposed to induce peace and equality in society, good healthcare and education systems, technology facilitating all aspects of daily life… All institutions of modernity have evolved as solutions to some medieval Western European problem. Problems that were not universal, though the system of solutions was assumed to be so.
To what cost? What is the toll of modernity? Extreme global inequality and exploitation (unmatched in history), destructive ideologies, total war and ongoing genocides, a capitalistic system whose logic of constant growth is causing frequent crises while destroying our planet, and the loss of traditional systems of value and meaning that leave modern societies hanging by a thread. The West could not export these said benefits into the regions it was concerned with, though one may question the sincerity of the efforts in a competitive world hierarchy. The modern person is alienated, unhappy, anxious and lonely in a planet that cannot support humanity’s greed for more for much longer. My generation experiences planetary destruction and an atmosphere of reluctant peace held together by the threat of total nuclear obliteration. Of course, even such peace is limited in geographical scope. I daily observe my generation’s perseverance wane without proper systems of support in place.
To critics of modernity, including myself, I’d like to remind that there is no point dreaming about the golden ages, as history knows only the briefest moments of such heights and is full of lows. To progressives; it is time to abandon the Enlightenment dream of constant progress, seeking a golden age to come. This idea manifested itself through various political theories along the spectrum, yet we can now call them out as misleading. History doesn’t move towards an end as Hegelians of all colours imagined, maybe we can say it dances in circles, metaphorically speaking.
I guess it is accepted that the modern era thus characterised has ended, that is why the term ‘postmodern’ is in wide circulation. But that term only captures a disillusionment without offering anything to us at all. Perhaps we should imagine a future we can build step by step, tapping into what has been sacrificed to the gods of modernity, while including what has worked best in the modern period into the synthesis (Hegelian after all?). I suggest we take the modern legacy without accepting it as the working paradigm, thus allowing ourselves to think outside it and avoiding limiting ourselves to its philosophical trappings. Is such a feat possible, or completely contradictory in its foundations?
That’s just a thought, though. I’m very out of my depth here. Hence the existential questions as I study the Politics of MENA. I am trying to find a way out for Muslim societies that seem to be unable to make peace with modernity after more than 200 years of battling it, and the West that seemingly has had enough of it. In a globalised world where all problems and crises are somehow interlinked, the answer to one may be the answer to all.
rana the reader 